


14,000,605 Lifetimes

by JeromeSankara



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Canonical Character Death, Future, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 19:59:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18581557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeromeSankara/pseuds/JeromeSankara
Summary: Fourteen million,  six hundred and five lifetimes traveled, but only a handful will I spend with you.Stephen Strange takes his last moments to cycle through his endings, to the ones he wished he was selfish enough to take.





	14,000,605 Lifetimes

To travel through fourteen million, six hundred and five lifetimes was something Stephen Strange never wanted to do again. The agony of Dormammu only took three thousand, eight hundred and fifty four deaths. The only way Stephen could bear through them was to count. Every death was closer to the end, no matter what it brought. Every death was different. Every death was painful.

But fourteen million, six hundred and five endings tended to blur together. Many of them ended the same way.

The war on Titan would be fought to the bitter end, the order of the deaths may change, but in the end, all of them perished. Thanos would take the stone and deliver a punishing end to half of their world. Those took approximately ten million, sixty-seven thousand and two endings.

Then there were the creative endings. The ones that scattered the survivors across the planet, fleeing from Thanos in any attempt to delay the inevitable. Of those three million, four hundred and twelve thousand, six hundred and twenty five endings, it was astonishing how different they all became, yet all ended the same.

Just more death.

Some killed in the endless search for the stone, others killed by the snap itself. The numbers were fickle to which half of the Avengers and others would live and which would die. Stephen would often be one of the last to fall, the last hope of the human race, only to be torn apart by the hands of Thanos. Some ended with torture, others just a quick snap of the neck if Thanos decided to show mercy. Those were rare.

But then there were a small percentage that intrigued him. Ones he didn't believe would ever come true, but were thought provoking nonetheless.

Five hundred and twenty thousand, nine hundred and seventy-seven lifetimes where one man's survival was crucial, other than his own.

Tony Stark.

Stephen held onto those lifetimes now, running them through his head mere seconds after he released the stone. He ignored the last attempt at a battle he had seen seven million, eighty thousand and forty-eight times. No one would win. They were just lucky not to die by a physical blow than to be trapped within the stone. There would be no return from a physical death.

He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the ache of his bones, his hands in near agony and shaking on his lap, no matter how much the Cloak tried to ease the pain by holding them still. The wounds to his body were mere scrapes compared to what he had experienced in most other lifetimes. Even the grievous wound to Stark's body would heal.

Stephen abandoned the present, knowing that the wheels were already in motion for the singular victorious future ahead. Yet his mind kept coming back to the failures. To the 3.71% of the endings with Tony Stark.

It would all start with a portal, an escape from the battle before Tony could be struck and injured. Tony would fight him every time, and in a third of those times, Tony would try to blast him where he stood. Those endings did not last long, as Tony would run back into war as fast as he could and find his death in Wakanda, dying by hundreds of thousands of means. Then Thanos would track Stephen down and end it all.

In the remaining three hundred and forty nine thousand, fifty five endings, they would run. Keeping themselves alive were their only missions, the only way to try to achieve victory. If Thanos grew close, Stephen would simply portal them away to a new random location. 

The endings fanned out after that, an even eighteen thousand ending within two days. Others lasted longer. Weeks, months, even years. And in those lifetimes, Stephen saw everything.

He saw a man who controlled the world, only to have that snatched away by Thanos. He saw a man who held barriers of titanium, to not only keep others out but himself in. Sometimes Stephen could get a quick glimpse through those barriers, to the broken man inside weighed down by death and loss.

The longer their lifetime lasted, the more he saw, and the more they shared. It became not only about protecting the Time Stone, but each other. Near deaths came frequently, and when they did come, they were the most painful. Because in each of those lifetimes, Stephen saw, for the first time, a partner. Someone to rely upon, almost by instinct.

Of the few thousand lifetimes, Stephen focused on the select few; two hundred and five. Those were the lives that let them escape from Thanos, to feel that false security. They still ran, but they ran together. It always took some instance of near death, but one would realize that losing the other was much too painful. Some people call it love. Others call it dependence. It took one look into Tony's eyes to know which one it was.

The days would go slower, if just to allow them a little peace before they died. In two hundred and five lives, they admitted their love, sixteen of those times seconds before death would claim one of their other half. In a hundred and forty lives, they married. In sixty-four of those, they lived for a decade together, always moving but never apart. There were so many moments that Stephen let himself get lost in Tony's eyes, and with each lifetime, Stephen fell more and more in love with them.

When Tony would touch his hands, traveling along the scars that led Stephen down this life, when there were those rare moments of bashfulness, his empty, blinding grin replaced with a twitching smile. Those were the moments that traveled through his mind as he counted down the seconds to the end.

Two hundred and five lifetimes of love out of fourteen million, six hundred and five. And Stephen chose none of them.

His eyes fluttered open, and he could only stare at Tony, at his features twisted with agony and defeat, maybe even fury at Stephen's sudden moment of weakness. There were so many things he wanted to say, but the end had already begun. The endings he felt fourteen million, six hundred and four other times felt like nothing compared to now, knowing all the lives they could have had.

“Tony,” he breathed, the final seconds ticking away. His breath caught in his throat at his name, that had been whispered from his lips thousands upon thousands of time, none of the times that Tony would ever hear.

_ I'm sorry, Anthony. _

“There was no other way.”

_ I tried. _


End file.
